Precisely why I didn't post what I thought. The thought of making owners pay 7% of every contract up front and off the cap OR making the length longer to minimize the impact does not compute to many NHLPA fans. Hell, I don't know if it would work, but its an idea that only a league financial expert can answer if that can work or not.

I just wish at this stage that Fehr and Bettman were locked in a room and working on the next deal and hard as we are talking about it.

Lengthen them out, meaning existing players have to play even longer before going to Free Agency? The PA will burn that to the ground faster than the Hindenburg. Oh the humanity...

Now, if you mean that a player on a 5 year contract gets 100 % of the contract over 7 years, but still becomes a Free Agent in 5 years, then I think the Owners would burn that down fas... well, you get the idea...

I meant the latter, but that is an option that is on the table. May not be ideal, but I believe that the players are entitled to every cent of those contracts, and there is a way to make it happen. I don't think this will be in the final deal though. Easy for someone to ***** at the idea. Hard to come up with a solution that is a win/win.

Yeah, that is the point I am getting at. You keep knocking the union proposal for the specific reason that it didn't immediately offer a 50/50 split out of the gate. I am saying, I don't think it is possible to go 50/50 out the gate and still honor existing contracts. It would have to ramp down to 50/50 over time. It seems you are starting to see that now...

Yeah, that is the point I am getting at. You keep knocking the union proposal for the specific reason that it didn't immediately offer a 50/50 split out of the gate. I am saying, I don't think it is possible to go 50/50 out the gate and still honor existing contracts. It would have to ramp down to 50/50 over time. It seems you are starting to see that now...

The only thing I am seeing right now is red. Not the Red Wings, but the color red.

I am angry at the NHL and NHLPA for their lack of negotiating and their willingness to play games with the media instead of get into a room and get to work. I am angry that the fans have been taken for a ride by these two organizations.

I don't know what deal would work or what wouldn't. The point is that everything we are talking about in terms of getting to 50% through rollbacks or paying up front or paying out contracts over a longer term are all just "possible" endings. Without the sides talking, we wont' get to a deal at all.

You know we have crossed into the twilight zone when pure speculation by opinionated writers is being touted by the fans of the NHLPA as fact. I suppose the lack of information really does give way to drawing your own conclusions.

Carry on!

Haha, fair enough.

Take existing contracts and lengthen them out so the money is paid out over a longer number of years. Every penny is paid out, but in a longer term, with interest.Make owners pay out of their own pockets or by the teams as a whole to pay the players up front for the decrease in salary. So if it goes from 57% to 50%, then the owners have to pay those salaries out and they don't count towards the cap.

Just a couple ideas that I am sure will be bitched at, shot down, or otherwise dismissed by the NHLPA fans here. I have others, but the point is that everything is negotiable and the right deal can be made.

1) Paying out the existing contracts in full regardless of revenues and split doesn't make sense to me because that wouldn't be the case under the expired CBA anyway. Example, even if the split was 57/43 forever, existing contracts are never truly guaranteed. If 57% of revenues drop below total contracted salaries.....total contracted salaries do not get paid in full.

2) I think what you describe is a way to segregate existing contracts vs. newly signed contracts....which is fair enough, but the owners don't want to pay full existing contracts, so that doesn't satisfy their needs.

3) The cap number is meaningless. All the owners truly care about is the split (50/50). You can set the cap at $200 million per team and if every teams spends to the cap, a lot of escrow payments will go back to the owners to get down to 50/50. All the cap does is help keep teams competitive (i.e. you don't have one team paying way more than another team). If all teams pay down to the floor.....players would probably get additional payments beyond their contracted salaries to get up to the 50/50.

I think the only real solution here is to cushion the immediate blow to the players (gradually get down to the 50/50, but not right off the bat). Maybe they take a bit more than 50% off the start, but the quicker the revenues grow (owner's control that fate the most), the quicker you get to 50/50. Honestly, I think the solution is so simple.

The idea noted in the article doesnt' get to 50/50 immediately. Basically, it's saying, let's start at 50/50 and the amounts greater than 50% will be paid as well, but we won't include that in the 50/50 split calc. The owners would never agree to that. I like the mechanism, but perhaps too complicated to track existing and new contracts. Apart from that, I think they'd have to tweak how the 13% gets topped up (i.e. make it contingent on revenue growth and take it down a bit). Whatever you do, you aren't going to be at 50% right away unless revenues grow by 15% in year one.

Edit....the thing that really pisses me off is the fact that the owners proposal does nothing to fix their problem...all is does is grab some additional cash from the players to help now, but the systematic problem still exists. When revenues keep growing due to select teams and 50/50 splits end up costing other teams who's revenues are not growing at the same rate....what is the NHL going to do in the next CBA? Take the players down to 40%? All that is going to happen is that the league as a whole will make more and more money....all coming from the top teams, with the occasional correction for smaller teams by grabbing money from players. It really, really annoys me to no end. They either need to abandon their desire for parity and allow teams to spend less than a floor (easy to do and still get to 50/50 in the end) or have more revenue sharing.

The idea noted in the article doesnt' get to 50/50 immediately. Basically, it's saying, let's start at 50/50 and the amounts greater than 50% will be paid as well, but we won't include that in the 50/50 split calc. The owners would never agree to that. I like the mechanism, but perhaps too complicated to track existing and new contracts. Apart from that, I think they'd have to tweak how the 13% gets topped up (i.e. make it contingent on revenue growth and take it down a bit). Whatever you do, you aren't going to be at 50% right away unless revenues grow by 15% in year one.

Edit....the thing that really pisses me off is the fact that the owners proposal does nothing to fix their problem...all is does is grab some additional cash from the players to help now, but the systematic problem still exists. When revenues keep growing due to select teams and 50/50 splits end up costing other teams who's revenues are not growing at the same rate....what is the NHL going to do in the next CBA? Take the players down to 40%? All that is going to happen is that the league as a whole will make more and more money....all coming from the top teams, with the occasional correction for smaller teams by grabbing money from players. It really, really annoys me to no end. They either need to abandon their desire for parity and allow teams to spend less than a floor (easy to do and still get to 50/50 in the end) or have more revenue sharing.

If you read the article, you will see that there are options on the table to get to 50% in year one. I like Fehr's option in his proposal.

As for what happens next year, I can tell you that the NHL will typically follow the other sports. Just like the NBA and NFL splits in revenue, the NHL will stay right along those lines. I think that it is off the mark to expect the players to take a pay cut to 40% No player would bow to that. If you look at the NBA for instance, the players had a similar deal as the NHL players had. 57% was the number in the NBA. The NFL has always been around 50/50, with the negotiations giving or taking about 1%. I doubt it goes down for the NHL unless the NBA and NFL decide to become more draconian in their negotiations and greedy as a result.

Thats what I said. The only way to do it is for the owners to pay out of pocket, which they won't. Or to ramp down to 50/50 over a few years.

When it comes to concessions, the owners have more to give than the players. They want to see the 50/50 split right away? Then pay up the contracts you signed, its that simple. Now if the NHLPA is willing to give the owners a bone on current contracts, then the owners can concede earlier free agency as an exchange.

I think that we need less of the, "That won't work" attitude and more of a can do attitude in these negotiations.

You know we have crossed into the twilight zone when pure speculation by opinionated writers is being touted by the fans of the NHLPA as fact. I suppose the lack of information really does give way to drawing your own conclusions.

Carry on!

Haha, fair enough.

Take existing contracts and lengthen them out so the money is paid out over a longer number of years. Every penny is paid out, but in a longer term, with interest.Make owners pay out of their own pockets or by the teams as a whole to pay the players up front for the decrease in salary. So if it goes from 57% to 50%, then the owners have to pay those salaries out and they don't count towards the cap.

Just a couple ideas that I am sure will be bitched at, shot down, or otherwise dismissed by the NHLPA fans here. I have others, but the point is that everything is negotiable and the right deal can be made.

That's a great idea, but you are still not understanding what I am saying and it's not that complicated (it's no wonder you are so confused about this lockout mess).The owners don't want to pay those salaries that's wha we are having a lockout, that is the purpose of the lockout, the raison d'etre if you will.Your proposals are exactly what the players want, are what most of us who are against Bettman, the NHL and their lockout would like to happen

And nobody ever said that managememnt weren't allowed to speak to players regarding the lockout, they are forbidden to speak to the media (us, where the money comes from) regarding league matters

That's a great idea, but you are still not understanding what I am saying and it's not that complicated (it's no wonder you are so confused about this lockout mess).The owners don't want to pay those salaries that's wha we are having a lockout, that is the purpose of the lockout, the raison d'etre if you will.Your proposals are exactly what the players want, are what most of us who are against Bettman, the NHL and their lockout would like to happen

The "making whole" portion of these negotiations are just now becoming a priority. The HRR was the priority before. The contracts are just a piece, a major piece mind you, but a piece. Its like staying that the realignment, drug testing, and other categories are not potential hangups because they could be. Now that we have the HRR ironed out, getting to that HRR is key which is why the contracts are taking the front seat now.

You are right, the owners don't want to pay those out. I am merely saying there are options and both sides have to get in a room and negotiate. The owners have things the players want, so they should relinquish those things to get the contracts down if that is what it takes. I don't know what is going to be the final deal, but I am sure you and I both agree that a deal is there to be made.

To say that someone is "confused" would indicate that they don't know what the issue really is. I believe you and I have a good understanding of the problem and solution even more than the NHL or NHLPA does at this stage. Its widely accepted that two parties that could work together could have had this ironed out in a week or less. So, when you say I am confused about this whole lockout thing, it is about as insulting as me calling you a "NHLPA sheep". The point is that kind of classification can stay away from these discussions. What you pointed out was a "duh" statement. I believe we both know why the sides are stuck right now. Acknowledging that is the first step to fixing the problem. So where are the negotiations?

And nobody ever said that managememnt weren't allowed to speak to players regarding the lockout, they are forbidden to speak to the media (us, where the money comes from) regarding league matters

Actually, yeah, management is not allowed to talk to the players, that's why they were 'granted permission' last week. I thought it was some sort of CBA bylaw, but apparently it's league sanctioned; if that post is even true.

There was an article I was reading about how Howard (I think it was Howie) was having a hard time not being able to talk to his buddy Osgood. They can't even go to birthday parties for each others' kids, the wives have to do all that.

...Take existing contracts and lengthen them out so the money is paid out over a longer number of years. Every penny is paid out, but in a longer term, with interest.Make owners pay out of their own pockets or by the teams as a whole to pay the players up front for the decrease in salary. So if it goes from 57% to 50%, then the owners have to pay those salaries out and they don't count towards the cap.

Just a couple ideas that I am sure will be bitched at, shot down, or otherwise dismissed by the NHLPA fans here. I have others, but the point is that everything is negotiable and the right deal can be made.

Do you realize that your second idea, "Make owners pay out of their own pockets or by the teams as a whole to pay the players up front for the decrease in salary. ..." is pretty much what the PA proposed in "option 3"?

It is also not a true 50/50 split right off the bat, as you tout it to be.

Take existing contracts and lengthen them out so the money is paid out over a longer number of years. Every penny is paid out, but in a longer term, with interest.Make owners pay out of their own pockets or by the teams as a whole to pay the players up front for the decrease in salary. So if it goes from 57% to 50%, then the owners have to pay those salaries out and they don't count towards the cap.

Lengthen then how exactly? For example, if a player has 5 year contract would he still become free agent in 5 years? Or is it just the length of time over which value of the contract is payed out gets lengthened? It actually quite close to the third option proposed by NHLPA (including the bit about not counting portion of the existing contracts against the cap).

Sorry, missed your answer to the similar question earlier in the thread.

I sincerely hope that Uncle Gary's latest "cunning stunt" results in even more solidarity in the PA. The fact that he tried this is bad. The fact that it has been made public by the media is great.

Agreed. But at the same time, it also pretty much guarantees that this will drag out for a lot longer now, which sucks.

The fact that over the last week the NHL has tried shady underhanded stunts to try to bypass the NHLPA and influence players and/or possibly attempt to get insider union info from them, and rejected the NHLPAs proposals in mere minutes, without even giving them any consideration is not only a further huge wedge between the players and NHL, but even a lot of the players who were holding out some hope, now have likely lost what little trust they had left in the NHL after this past week and the events that have transpired.

It certainly is interesting to consider, but I'm not sure I buy it, to be honest. Bettman only needs 8 votes in his favor to ensure he isn't overruled, for the "Bettman's fault" theory to not be true, he would need 23 owners against him to force his hand. And since we already know that Jacobs (Boston), Leipold (Minnesota), Edwards (Calgary) and Leonsis (Washington) are solidly in Bettman's camp as well as the League-Owned Coyotes, that leaves Bettman only needing 3 votes to ensure that he gets the final say on the League's stance.

My best guess? Bettman has more than 8 owners in his court, but their support very well could be conditional on him doing everything he can to completely break the PA, and force them into only a deal of the League's offering.

yea i'm not sure i buy it either considering all the media spin going on during this lockout. but it does support my theory during this whole lockout that the owners are more to blame for this than bettman, which is why i think the whole idea of sacrifcing an entire season just to fire bettman is ridiculous.

NHLPA has requested to meet this week, but refuse to meet on NHL terms.

NHL refuses to meet without precondition.

Our season is going up in smoke as the days go on.

pretty much sums up this whole lockout. both sides want it thier way or the highway

In reality, when you’re dealing with over 700 players it’s understandable if players have varying opinions on how things are being handled. Hell on the owners side you only have 30 Governors and it safe to assume not everyone’s on the same page there either.It’s just the reality and sooner than later players will begin to speak out. I’m sure some owners would as well if they didn’t face stiff penalties set forth by the NHL....

The bottom line is some players would like to urge the Players Association to quickly present a proposal that will engage the league and get back to the negotiating table. There is a sense of restlessness growing among certain guys and the same can probably be said among some owners. This has led to some players reaching out to Donald Fehr on their own searching for answers.